Are these made only in the spring, or can they be made in the summerr? I really want to build the apiary, and I must confess my ignorance about how to go abouth this.

This year I made a split (nuc) in early April and will be making another 1 or 2 around the 4th of July. I'll actually be using frames from the April split to help make the July split(s) as I make splits (nucs) using a frame of brood from each hive in the yard. With 5 hives, pulling 2 frames from each hive I end up with 2 5 frame nucs or I can place them into a single 8 frame but I'll be building the splits up for winter in double or triple stacked nuc boxes. That will build my bee yard to 7 hives.

Using a frame of brood frame each hive mixes mostly nurse bees into the splits and they then make their own queen. The mixed frames insures I get genetic diversity even if I were to move the split out someplace where it couldn't find a different drone source that itself. The crapshoot is that I don't know if I will get a Russian, Carnie, or Cardovan queen, but each queen will hold the genetics of all 3 in her sperm storage ducts.

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Do I understand correctly that you will be stacking 5 frame boxes on top of of the original nuc box and overwintering in this configuration? Is there an advantage to this over filling an 8 frame box and stacking another on top? Do the bees simply not ave time to fill two (or three) boxes before winter? Could (or should might be a better question) a beekeeper pull several frames of brood from various hives in July and then add a queen that has been bought rather than raised? Are there advantages to either approach? I am resigned to not getting a huge honey crop this year, but I really want to build the yard. If I can split the packages and nucs I got this year, it would really expand the yard. Thanks for the advice.

You should be able to do a split with a bought queen in July, but you will have to feed feed feed. I just started raising queens for my found of splits, and I know I will be feeding like the dickens to get them all ready for winter.

Are these made only in the spring, or can they be made in the summerr? I really want to build the apiary, and I must confess my ignorance about how to go abouth this.

This year I made a split (nuc) in early April and will be making another 1 or 2 around the 4th of July. I'll actually be using frames from the April split to help make the July split(s) as I make splits (nucs) using a frame of brood from each hive in the yard. With 5 hives, pulling 2 frames from each hive I end up with 2 5 frame nucs or I can place them into a single 8 frame but I'll be building the splits up for winter in double or triple stacked nuc boxes. That will build my bee yard to 7 hives.

Using a frame of brood frame each hive mixes mostly nurse bees into the splits and they then make their own queen. The mixed frames insures I get genetic diversity even if I were to move the split out someplace where it couldn't find a different drone source that itself. The crapshoot is that I don't know if I will get a Russian, Carnie, or Cardovan queen, but each queen will hold the genetics of all 3 in her sperm storage ducts.

That was my question as well. I have been studying up on queen rearing and the poor queens that you get from "emergency" queen cells and was wondering how this is any different than "letting them raise their own queen...or if you just take that risk. According to the books, they may take larva that is too old in their rush to make a queen. Brian, do you have some practice....such as destroying the first capped cells or something?...to try to encourage them to hatch queens that were started from the right aged larva?

from now till September (or as long as I have drones available) I will be raising queens (grafting) for splits and nuc's, since our flows are about over I have to feed all summer to keep bee production up for these nuc's and queens, I am trying to build hive count up and also maybe winter as many nucs as possible. the whole thing is feeding to have hives and nuc's ready for winter.

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Do I understand correctly that you will be stacking 5 frame boxes on top of of the original nuc box and overwintering in this configuration? Is there an advantage to this over filling an 8 frame box and stacking another on top? Do the bees simply not ave time to fill two (or three) boxes before winter? Could (or should might be a better question) a beekeeper pull several frames of brood from various hives in July and then add a queen that has been bought rather than raised? Are there advantages to either approach? I am resigned to not getting a huge honey crop this year, but I really want to build the yard. If I can split the packages and nucs I got this year, it would really expand the yard. Thanks for the advice.

I've had good success in overwintering a late season split (or swarm) in a double stacked nuc, total 10 frames. I feed them in October until they are almost completely backfilled and building burr comb.They winter is a smaller cluster (cluster size appropriate to hive size) bult still build up well in the spring. It works best with Russians but does well with Carnies and even Italians. I will build each split by taking 1 frame of brood from each of my 5 hives then supering immediately.

Yes, since I have Russian, OWC, NWC, and Italians Hives in my bee yard I will take what I get just to see what I get. If I'm not satisfied with the mutt queen the hive produces then I'll requeen next year with a properly reared queen. Personally I think there is too much hoopla about Pedigree queens.

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i get good queens letting them raise their own. when you make a nuc to do this, you have to make sure you give them the right stuff. choose your frames carefully. make sure you have given them plenty of eggs in addition to whatever else you put in there. if there is no flow, or even if there is and you have mostly nurse bees in your nuc, feed until you see them bringing in stuff. then watch them. i have done two in the last two weeks (one today that i had not intended to do). the 1st i checked today. fat queen cells and plenty of stores. i only fed the first two days until i saw orientation flights and stuff coming in.

the one today was to make a home for the queen i bought and did not need. it will be interesting to watch both as they are starting from about the same place.

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This document discusses the practice of making july splits into nucs for having fresh queens during the time of year when days get shorter. The fresh queen will lay more quickly than an earlier mated queen and will out lay the mites and can be over wintered well. It's an interesting read. I currently have 6 nucs I've made up over the last couple weeks. One has a virgin queen the rest are in various stages of development. Feeding thru the rest of the year is a given as I want to build them up into single 8 frame deeps for over winter. I may over winter them as two story 4 frame nucs also, haven't decided yet.

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Sitting in the shade, drinking lemon aid.Enjoying the breeze while counting the bees.

Hi,I'm a novice and just split one of my nucs-(2 levels strong-5 frames in each nuc)-I just split off the old queen and sealed brood leaving a frame of eggs and at this point seem to have created alot of queen cells, I am worried that they may swarm because of the amount of queen cells, (I wasnt sure if I should eliminate some myself, located in Florida, they seem to be so strong that I might want to split again, does anyone have any input on doing multiple splits in a short period of time, they seem to always be bringing in plenty of pollen....any input is appreciated. My thought is that the two nucs with 5 frames each are quite strong could I split or take from the two nucs to make a third?

Davidc,Yes, you could do that I'm betting. I had made a split up back in end of March that was strong enough that it swarmed. I retrieved the swarm into a box of it's own, and ended up with 2 hives now, sisters of each other. If you could make up another of maybe a frame of nectar a frame of sealed brood and a frame with eggs or queen cell should be good enough. I make them up here of that size. So long as you have enough nurse bees to cover those three frames nicely, and could fill out the rest with empty drawn or foundation. It's getting late in the year, I imagine you'll need to keep feed on them all so they get a full box or two built out before temps start dropping for winter.

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yer im waiting one more month so i can start splits, but hey, good way to know... when the lid is really full of bees and they are building burcomb on the tops of your frames (best indication is when 5 out of 10 frames have surplus burcomb ontop) , also you will need brood in all stages and frames completly full of bees aswell... if the honey flow is heavy let them raise their own queen especailly if your queen is holding up the colony well, best indication is too look for good laying pattern, if she is rubbish, then buy a mated queen:P sadly i lost my strong queen and majority of the colony to shb and ants yesterday, so im really lookn forward to gettn another nuc up and running, (must have good honey flow)! and try hard not to feed pollen patties for nucs are really vulnerable to shb and shb are really attracted to pollen even more then the bees believe it or not :P gud luck :P